A New Version of Me
by ever
Summary: Okay i'm really bad at these things so just please, please read and review...


This is the first of two prequels to The Human Spirit, so if you want more about Sun you can look there (btw the second prequel will be here soon it is called Rising Sun)  
  
New Version Of Me  
By 4ever   
This is the song by... okay i don't know who it's by, but's it's the new theme song to Felicity  
Can you become?  
Can you become?  
A new version of you  
You want paper   
Or shoe leather   
A new way home   
I don't remember   
New version of you   
I need a new version of me  
New version of you   
I need a new version of me  
  
I'm from the Midwest, which means I like my oranges to be orange (as opposed to Awrange) and horrible things to be horrible (not hawrable). In fact I never wanted to leave Chicago, where I was born. Originally I couldn't forgive Philadelphia for not being it.  
But I'm gettting ahead of myself, as always. In Chicago if you asked for Sun you wouldn't have found her. There was Mac, but no Sun. The name was given to me by my friend Katie and the rest of her Irish family. In my neighborhood you couldn't throw a paper without hitting an Irish man. Apart from Katie I had a real problem with Irish guys. (no offense, it's just a story, i really don't and i think they r really cool) Growing up in an almost completely Irish neighborhood I never really got a long. Maybe I was a little too smug and maybe I did really ask for it, but I never expected things to happen the way they did.  
The big gang in those days was a bunch of older Irish boys, who had never liked me and I never liked them. They didn't have a real reason for starting up with me, except for the fact that I was an American, but they did anway. The next I knew every hoodlum on my side of the Michigan was after me and I was lost.  
"Ya can't stay here forever," Katie told me. "Running is no life."  
"I know, I know." It was way to painful to think of leaving my only home, but deep down in my heart I knew I had to. And eventually I did and I went to interview for a job. It would take me to Philadelphia. I would accompany this lady's dog in the back of a train, while she sat up in first class.   
"How old are you?" I remember her asking me.  
"Thirteen," I lied. I was only ten. The lady eyed me suspicioulsy.  
"Are you in trouble with the authorities?"  
"No ma'am."  
"I don't want any trouble. You have to keep clean and act smart."   
"Yes ma'am."  
"And take good care of pooches."  
"Yes ma'am," I said, as she handed me a white ball of fluff.  
I spent the train ride, practically in tears, thinking about how I was leaving my home and could never go back. It made my heart ache to think about the hole that somehow had to be filled. I doubted Philadelphia could do it and I didn't know if I wanted it to.  
When we arrived in Philadelphia several days later the lady payed me and I found the first park bench available and plopped down into it and went straight to sleep. The city's sound were unfamiliar and at first I couldn't remember where I was, when I awoke the next morning.   
But eventually the familiar sounds of the city came to me and like a symphony comforted me and reminded me that I had to get up and do something. So I got up off the bench and stretched. The blood started to flow through my veins and it felt good to move again.  
"It can make you pretty stiff, sleeping on a bench," I heard a voice say.  
I turned around, but didn't say anything. There before was a girl of my own age. She was shorter than me and had her straight hair cut short. It swished around her head, when she talked. "I'm a newsie," she said, brightly.  
"In Chicago we eat newsies for breakfast," I said, with a fake Irish accent I'd picked up.   
"That's too bad, because I was about to go have some breakfast," she said, undaunted.  
I licked my lips hungrily. "Breakfast?" Food? My mind said. I was acutely conscious of the rumbling in my stomach. The girl turned and pointed to a stand with food. I looked expecting to see Catholic nuns or something, but they were just regularly clad people. "Who are they?" I asked.  
"Quakers," the girl said. I grinned. Of course in Pennsylvania there would be Quakers. The girl took my grin as a sign of friendship. "I'm Saiah," she said, holding out her hand.  
"Saiah?" I asked," what kind of name is that?"  
"It's a good name," she said, defensively.  
"It's too long," I said. "It should be Sai."  
"Well, what's your name?" she said, slightly cross.  
The words were on my lips, but I paused. "I don't have one."  
Saiah raised an eyebrow. "What?"  
"Well, I just... whatever. How do I get food?" Saiah shrugged and led me to the food and her friends. I met Smudge, Laconic, Neve, Shisha, Gigglebuy, and Dixie Kracinsky, the entire company of the Philadelphia newsies. Unimpressed? So was I.  
The next morning I awoke in a warm bed in the newsgirls lodging house. The sun streamed in down the windows. I hopped off the bed and moved towards the windows. "Ssssuuuuuunnnnnn," I said, stretching my arms out like a zombie. Shisha saw me and laughed.  
"Hey Sun, you planning on getting dressed today?" Saiah called to me.  
I turned around. "What did you call me, Sai?"  
"Sun," she said, her hands on her hips. "You got a problem with that?"  
I thought for a minute. Sun. I could get used to that. "No," I told her. "No problem here, Sai." She grinned and I went off to get ready for my first day as a Philadelphia newsie. 


End file.
